Rumors about the next-generation Xbox have been circulating for years. The next-generation Xbox, or Xbox 720 as some call it, is expected to launch later this year. There are some indications that Microsoft might unveil the next-generation Xbox ahead of E3 2013. Other rumors have put the price of the next-generation Xbox at around $400.

While most details of the next-generation console remain to be seen, leaked specs have surfaced this week that give some hardware specifications for the processor that will be the brains of the next-generation Xbox. The processor has x64 architecture and eight cores running at 1.6 GHz. Each of those CPU threads has its own 32 kB L1 instruction cache and 32 kB L1 data cache. Each module of the four CPU cores has its own 2 MB L2 cache giving the processor a total of 4 MB of L2 cache.

VGLeaks reports that each core has one fully independent hardware thread and doesn't share execution resources. Each hardware thread is also reportedly able to issue two instructions per clock cycle. The next-generation Xbox GPU is reportedly a custom D3D 11.1 class unit running at 800 MHz with 12 shader cores and 768 total threads.

Each of those threads is reportedly able to perform one scaler multiplication and additional operation per clock. A natural user interface sensor is also always present. That processor is reportedly paired with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM.

The machine is also paired with a 6x Blu-ray drive, gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and various hardware accelerators for image, video, and audio codecs. The machine is also tipped include a Kinect multichannel echo cancellation hardware chip and cryptography engines for encrypting and decrypting content.

With prices dropping fast on SSDs, I would hope that 64-128GB of onboard storage should be standard, with hard drive options for 500GB or larger drives (including options for several SSD drive sizes).

Granted optical media is still the choke point with any system, PC or console, so the "install to hard drive" should be a much welcomed addition, at least for the owners most played games like what the PS3 already does with certain games.

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